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 RITUALISTS

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RITUALISTS

Church Association to keep watch on the services in rituaUstic churches, issued a voluminous report in 1906.

Although the commission has accomplished little more than the propounding of certain suggestions regarding the reconstitution of the ecclesiastical courts, suggestions which have not yet been acted upon, the "Report" is a document of the highest im- portance for the evidence which it contains of the developments of Ritualism. The commissioners single out certain practices which they condemn as being graver in character and of a kind that demand immediate suppression. No doubt the numerical proportion of the churches in which the clergy go to these lengths is small, but the number seems to be increasing. The practices censured as of special gravity and significance, are the following: "The interpolation of prayers and ceremonies belonging to the Canon of the Mass. The use of the words 'Behold the Lamb of God' accompanied by the exhibition of a consecrated wafer or bread. Res- ervation of the sacrament under conditions which lead to its adoration. Mass of the prcsanctified. Corpus Christ i processions with the sacrament. Benediction with the sacrament. Celebration of the Holy Eucharist with the intent that there should be no communicant except the celebrant. Hymns, prayers and devotions involving invocation or a confession to the Blessed Virgin or the saints. The observance of the festivals of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Sacred Heart. The veneration of images and roods." These practices are described as having an exceptional character because they are at once (1) in flagrant contradiction with the teaching of the Articles and Prayer Book; (2) they are illegal, and (3) their illegality does not depend upon any judgment of the Pri\-y' Council. Similar objection is taken to any ob- servance of All Souls' Day or of the festival of Corpus Chri.«ti which implies the "Romish" doctrine con- cerning i)urgatorj' or transubstantiation.

But while it is quite true that the number of churches in which these extremes are practised is small, it is important to remember that private oratories, communities, and sisterhoods, which last commonly follow forms of devotion and ritual w^hich cannot externally be distinguished from those pre- vailing in the Catholic Church, were not in any way touched by these investigations of the commissioners. It is in such strongholds that the ritualistic spirit is nurtured and propagated, and there is as yet no sign that the feeling which animated this revival of the religious life is less earnest than of yore.

Again everj'thing seems to point to the conclusion that if extreme prac;tices have not spread more widely this is due le.ss to any distaste for such iiractices in themselves than to a shrinking from the unpleasant- ness engendered V)y open conflict with ecclesiastical authority. Where comparative impunity hjus been wcured, :is for example by the ambiguity of the Or- nament. s Rubric, a notable an<l increasing proportion of the clergy ha%'e axlvanced to the very limits of what was likely to be tolerated in the way of ritualis- tic development. It has been stated by Archbishop Davidson that before IS.^0 the use of vestments in a public church wa.s known hardly anywhere. In 1901 carefully compiled statistics showed that Eucharis- tic vestments of some kind Cother than the stole au- thorized by long tra/iitionji were used in no less than lo'Jti churches of the provinces of York and Canter- bur>'. that is aVxtut twelve per cent of the whole; and the number has increased since. A slighter but not altogether contemptible indication of the drift of opinion when unchecked by authority is to be found in the familiar "Roman collar". I^ss than ^f^y^yf^i^rn ago, at the time of the "Roman aggres- sion" it was regarded in Engliind as the distinctive feature of the dress of a Catholic priest, an article

which by its very name manifested its proper usage. Not long afterwards it was gradually adopted by certain High Church clergymen of an extreme type. At the present day it is the rule rather than the ex- ception among English ecclesiastics of all shades of opinion, not excepting even the Nonconformists.

With regard to the present position and principles of the Ritualists we shall probably do well with Monsignor R. H. Benson (Non-Catholic Denomina- tions, pp. 29-58) to recognize a distinction between two separate schools of thought, the moderate and the extreme. On the one hand all the members of this party seem to agree in recognizing the need of some more immediate court of appeal to settle disputed questions of dogma and ritual than can be afforded by the "Primitive Church" which the early Trac- tarians were content to invoke in their difficulties. On the other hand while both sections of the Ritual- ists are in search of a "Living Voice" to guide them, or at any rate of some substitute for that Living Voice, the}' have come to supply the need in two quite different ways. To the moderate Rituali.sts it has seemed sufficient to look back to the Book of Common Prayer. This, it is urged, was drawn uj) in full view of the situation created by "Roman abuses", and though it was not intended to be a complete and final guide in every detail of doctrine and discipline, the fact that it was originally issued to men already trained in Catholic principles, justifies us in supplying deficiencies bj^ setting a Catholic interpretation upon all doubtful points and omissions. The Ritualist of this school, who of course firmly believes in the continuity of his Church with the Church of England before the Reformation, thinks it his duty to "behave and teach as a Marian priest, conforming under Elizabeth, would have behaved and taught when the Prayer Book was first put into his hands: he must supply the lacump and carry out the imperfect directions in as 'Catholic' a manner as possible" (Benson, op. cit., p. 32). Thus interpreted, the Prayer Book supplies a standard by which the rulings of bishops and judicial committees may be measured, and, if necessary, set aside; for the bishops themselves are no less bound by the Prayer Book than are the rest of the clcrgj-, and no command of a bishop need be obeyed if it transgress the directions of this higher written authority. The objections to which this solution of the difficulty is oj^en must be sufficiently obvious. Clearlj' the text of this written authority itself needs inter])retation and it must seem to the unprejudiced mind that uiion contested points the interpretation of the Ijishops and other officials of the Establishment is not only l)etter authorized than that of the individual Ritualist, but that in almost every case the intrri)retation of the latter in view of the Arti(:les, canons, homilies, and other official utter- ances is strained and unnatural. Moreover there is the undeniable fact of desuetude. To apj)eal to such an ordinance as the "Ornameiils Ruliric" as evi- dently binding, after it has been in i)ractice neglected by all orders of the Church for nearly three hundred years, is contrary to all ecclesiastical as well as civil presumptions in matters of external observance.

The extreme party among the Ritualists, though they undoubtedly go beyond their more moder^e brethren in their sympathy with Catholic ])ractice8 and also in a very definitely formulated wish for "Reunion" (see Union' of Chki.stendom), do not greatly differ from them in matters of doctrine. .Slany adopt .such dcvot ions as the ro.sary and benedic- tion, some iiriitate Catholic; practice so far as to recite the Canon of the Mass in Latin, a few profess even to hold the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff and to recreive (of course with excei)tion of the necessity of external conununion with Rome) all doctrines defined and taught by him. But the more fundamental diflference which divides the Ritualists into two classes